TO THE EDITOR OF CCO:
I want to address a quote from DMD Director Kelley Coures that appeared in the Courier & Press that I find problematic. When referring to the ongoing revitalization of downtown he has been quoted as saying that he thinks that “one of the things the next City Council will have to do is find money to incentive construction of housing Downtown.â€
I take exception to his comment in several ways. First, it is not the job of a department head to tell the elected officials what they “have†to do. It is the job of our elected leaders to tell the department heads what they are to do in the public interest. Mr. Coures has a reputation for being rude to the public, and the Mayor appears to have no objection to how “the little people†are treated.
The content of the quote is an even bigger sticking point for me. We have spent tens of millions of dollars to benefit the downtown area and will be paying that debt off for decades to come. We have all been told by the Mayor and Mr. Coures that those improvements will bring people back downtown to live. If that is true, and there is a market for middle-income housing in downtown, private development will handle that demand. We don’t incentivize subdivisions near the county line. We don’t need to because people want to live there. When people want to live downtown, builders will at least enjoy the fact that zoning will not be a problem and land prices are comparatively low, as well. Those and other natural incentives are nothing that City Council will have to “find.†I would also remind the gentlemen that if the hotel had not been so radically downgraded, there would be new apartments being built right now.
As the election draws near, I hope the voters will step back and take a long, hard look at how the interests of the entire city have been served by Lloyd Winnecke and his employees. I don’t believe that Evansville can withstand another four years of Winnecke, much less Kelley Coures.
Laura K. Blackburn
” If that is true, and there is a market for middle-income housing in downtown, private development will handle that demand.”
I will believe downtown is coming back when someone put a grocery store and gas station there.
STONEDREAMER….you’re making the case!
Grocery and fuel station follow after housing. It’s a plan. It’s a very smart, dynamic plan.
It’s the people with vision and courage who always take the arrows in the chest.
“It is not the critic who counts; nor the one who points out how the strong person stumbled, or where the actual doer of a deed could have done better. The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly. Far better to give support to the one who has courage and does good deeds, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
Wow Don. Profound quote!
“Credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena”. George Lumley?
Commonsense…..Credit goes to our good friend, Teddy Roosevelt.
Here’s my favorite version of that, written by somebody who could actually do something.
“The galleries are full of critics. They play no ball. They fight no fights. They make no mistakes because they attempt nothing. Down in the arena are the doers. They make mistakes because they try many things. The man who makes no mistakes lacks boldness and the spirit of adventure. He is the one who never tries anything. He is the brake on the wheel of progress. And yet it cannot be truly said he makes no mistakes, because his biggest mistake is the very fact that he tries nothing, does nothing, except criticize those who do things.”
Gen. David M. Shoup,
Former Commandant, US Marine Corps,
Medal of Honor, Tarawa, November 1943
Don, your right – its a plan. You slipped off the edge after that. It’s a stupid plan. It can only benefit the wealthy while costing every last dollar the city has that should be going into other neighborhoods. All the improvement downtown is great but the cost to the residents of Evansville is too high. Makes no sense to me to make the Downtown and Arts district thrive at the expense of other neighborhoods. The funding being used is not extra funding but the food, housing, and clothes off peoples backs in other neighborhoods.
Food, housing, clothes is symbolic for city services like crime prevention, streets, sidewalks, transportation, garbage, vacant buildings, etc.
Stonedreamer, I heard there was a local considering putting a gas station there and Kelly and his personal government swooped in and bought the property. If success is controlling real-estate our DMD is the best.
Wasn’t there a grocery store in the Old Post Office that wasn’t supported enough to last a year?
I agree with you Laura , I think most people have noticed that coures is a as swipe and treats people with no respect
Coures ran around the outside of the circle for a long time, his rude scolding becoming more intense with each lap. It took something like Lloyd Winnecke to let him in. Fortunately there is a cure. A de-officication of Winnecke on Nov. 3 will not fix all of Evansville’s problems but it is an absolutely necessary start. Just look at the kind of people he surrounds himself with.
Gail Riecken is a major supporter of downtown initiatives, a friend of the business community and the public private partnerships that it took to create the success downtown is enjoying.
She may have different tactics and smart management of the same Bandana, but you are wholly guilty of misrepresentation if you say Candidate Riecken does not support downtown initiatives.
Coures is doing his job, and he is succeeding.
Gail absolutely is a friend of downtown development, but she is also a friend of all development in Evansville. Did you really read her economic plan yesterday? She spoke of a moratorium on spending from the Downtown TIF.
Yes, I read that. It had to be included in the text.
I will say Coures and his DMD did a good job of building some nice $75k homes at a cost to the taxpayer of over $150k. No need to have to worry about administrative cost for perpetual funds if you just spend them. Good use of the theory that if you are broke you qualify for more funding. He also does a good job of promoting the blight. Nothing like some nicely blighted neighborhoods to attract funding for downtown or commercial use. He is currently making a good use of the tax sale blight to get $700k in riverboat funding as a gift to his Brownfields Corp for operating expenses.
I think he is a real life Robin Hood taking the arrows in the chest. Robbing from the poor tax payers to give to the even poorer business owners who are struggling to survive and must rely on his charity. Some of these business owners are not even worth a million dollars. How will they ever survive without Kelly’s help?
That might be the best description I’ve heard of KC’s “rise to power.”
There was a reason several previous administrations ignored him beating on the door. If Winnecke doesn’t survive the scandal surrounding his mentor, teacher and hand-picked ticketmate Schriber, Coures can always take refuge back in the sub-prime loan business.
I first met him when he was knocking on the “real” Russell Lloyd’s door, so he has been at it for a long time. I’m not so sure even Winkie willing let him in. He may have found some sort of old “crowbar” to pry his way in.
Maybe a backdoor entrance??
“Back door”, now that’s really on the down-low….
Bravo, Laura! Coures is one of too many “public servants” who think the meaning of public servant is the public, i.e. taxpayers, are their servants.
(+1)
Local government efforts to create markets where none exist are a recipe for keeping taxpayers from reaching their own financial goals. It is nothing more than a transfer of wealth to those who already have considerable assets from those who are trying to accumulate some of their own.
And while we are on this subject, why is it that “developers” must always have their projects “incentivized” no matter where the projects go in this city? Jonathan Weinzapfel proved during his time in office as mayor that he could declare any place in the city a “targeted economic development zone”. Of course that never applied to building a single family residence anywhere.
Yeah, and the fact that the entire Evansville downtown sits in a federally mandated 3/4 of a billion dollar toxic waste zone should be a minor heads up, or tilt of a direction. Your governance equates a bouncing T- bucket full of overly made up clowns.
Do you ever get tired of whining? I think you are Haynie still upset about losing 4.8 million. A charlatan whose Foo Foo dust has been refused. Please cry about something else. I have enjoyed your posts in the past, but this is tiresome.
Well said Laura..
Thank you Laura.
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